Posted
by
BeauHDon Wednesday September 13, 2017 @11:30PM
from the I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-mine dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled, alternative source): Recently, scientists carried out the first large-scale study of what climate change may do to the world's much-loathed parasites. The team came to a startling conclusion: as many as one in three parasite species may face extinction in the next century. As global warming raises the planet's temperature, the researchers found, many species will lose territory in which to survive. Some of their hosts will be lost, too. Researchers have begun carefully studying the roles that parasites play. They make up the majority of the biomass in some ecosystems, outweighing predators sharing their environments by a factor of 20 to 1. For decades, scientists who studied food webs drew lines between species -- between wildebeest and the grass they grazed on, for example, and between the wildebeest and the lions that ate them. In a major oversight, they didn't factor in the extent to which parasites feed on hosts. As it turns out, as much as 80 percent of the lines in a given food web are links to parasites. They are big players in the food supply.

Some researchers had already investigated the fate of a few parasite species, but Colin J. Carlson, lead author of the study and a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues wanted to get a global view of the impact of climate change. Some kinds won't lose much in a warming world, the study found. For instance, thorny-headed worms are likely to be protected because their hosts, fish and birds, are common and widespread. But other types, such as fleas and tapeworms, may not be able to tolerate much change in temperature; many others infect only hosts that are facing extinction, as well. In all, roughly 30 percent of parasitic species could disappear, Mr. Carlson concluded. The impact of climate change will be as great or greater for these species as for any others studied so far. The study has been published in Science Advances.

The same? What the fuck man? Are you living in a basement? I'm 27 years old living in southern Finland, and the climate most definitely is not 'the same' as it used to be when I was a kid. Winters start a lot later in general. It's normal to have a winter here or there that's warmer and gets less snow, but in since the weather is more unstable now and each year tends to be on average hotter than the last, with nearly every year in the 2000s breaking records, the snow doesn't stay on the ground but melts, which obviously in the long term is doing damage to plants and wildlife whose natural cycle has evolved to deal with proper winter. Looking at meteorological data [ilmatieteenlaitos.fi] for Helsinki in the 2000s 13 years have been warmer than the average, while the remaining 3 have been extremely cold, several times colder than the average. Because of those 3 extremely cold winters the average temp has 'only' gone up by 0,5 celsius here in Helsinki but that's an absurdly high figure for less than 2 decades. This essentially means there are no 'normal' winters anymore, where we get a steady amount of snow throughout the winter, It's either bleakishly warm moist and dark, with little or no snow, or extremely fucking cold with 10s of centimeters of snow fucking up all transit and traffic.

This is what climate science has predicted all along: increase in extreme weather on both ends of the scale, and it is most certainly seen - and felt. here. The meteorologists predict that if this keeps going, by the time I'm in my 50s southern Finland may see very little if any snowfall at all during the winter months, which is a dramatic shift for the environment as well as for the mental well being of people (snow coverage reflects light which offsets the darkness of the northern wintertime when we get nearly no sunlight. Without any snow, most of the daytime is essentially black as night during winter months, which leads to increased fatigue and depression).

At the same time globally there are more storms, more flooding and in certain regions increased droughts.

Like damn, it really takes a record amount of stupidity to look at the climate data now and proclaim the climate 'is the same', when people my age can already spot the difference with their own eyes.

Looking at meteorological data [ilmatieteenlaitos.fi] for Helsinki in the 2000s 13 years have been warmer than the average, while the remaining 3 have been extremely cold,

I should clarify that the numbers I used were for winters only. If you look at averages for the entire year, the change is slightly less but still extremely noticeable considering the timeframe: 0,37 degrees warmer than the average.

I live at roughly the same latitude as Finland, and I call BS on your anedotal evidence of climate change over 20 years. Methinks this is a strong case of confirmation bias with all the global warming stories.

For anyone who actually lives in the north, you'll know winter is driven almost exclusively by sunlight, or the lack thereof as you approach winter months. The amount of light hitting our area of earth has not changed at all during this period, and actual temperature changes are so slight there no

"York University researchers are warning that climate change is causing the country to become increasingly habitable to the blood-sucking bugs, which migrate by clinging to travelling birds and deer.
Jianhong Wu, the director of the York Institute for Health Research, says the tick population will grow exponentially in the coming years in many parts of Ontario."

"Fully admitting the models are wrong" is curious - no, make that furious - way to spin that study.

Models are made, data is gathered and compared with the model, models get refined. Welcome to science. That doesn't "admit the models are wrong", merely that there are variables - many of them, in this case - that we don't know with accuracy.

This particular paper suggests - rather tentatively - that "model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations." That may or may not be correct, but it suggests one way in which the models could be refined.

This is one of the basic tactics of disinformation: misrepresent a legitimate study, secure in the knowledge that everyone who agrees with your point of view will just believe you and not even click on your links (the first of which directs straight back to this page, by the way).

"It's reasonable to assume that the worst predictions from AGW are not going to happen" - now, that is indeed arguable, because "the worst predictions" are made by, frankly, lunatics. Remember "The Day After Tomorrow"? Movie published by Fox (yes, that Fox)? That's not going to happen. There you go, you're vindicated. But still spreading disinformation.

I've been saying the models have been unable to even relatively accurately recreate *past* climate changes with all the data available. What the hell makes anyone think using those models' predictions on future climate as the basis for making massive changes to society that *will* cost many, many lives is even sane, never mind being a 'good idea'?

Humans do not yet have even a significant fraction of the computing power required to model the Earth's climate. It's a massively-chaotic system with more significant variables than we even know about to attempt to measure and include in said models. It would be a much simpler problem to predict the future individual movements of every single fish in the Great Lakes over the next century.

This is all about ideologies, politics, agendas, money, and power. Science takes a distant back seat.

Unless you've been saying that in a peer-reviewed paper in a journal of good standing, it matters naught. As your last sentence demonstrates your respect for the scientific method, you might want to apply it to your own criticism of the findings. To not do so is incredibly hypocritical, and only serves to make you look like someone wishing their conclusions are correct, which I'm sure you're not.

I've been saying the models have been unable to even relatively accurately recreate *past* climate changes with all the data available.

Unless you've been saying that in a peer-reviewed paper in a journal of good standing, it matters naught. As your last sentence demonstrates your respect for the scientific method, you might want to apply it to your own criticism of the findings. To not do so is incredibly hypocritical, and only serves to make you look like someone wishing their conclusions are correct, which I'm sure you're not.

Then I'm sure you can cite the climate models that accurately track past climate change without massive adjustments to the raw data.

Which is why the paper goes on to conclude that it wasn't just "internal variability" but also external forcings that contributed to the discrepancy.

So in addition to the ENSO cycle going through an extended period of transferring heat into the oceans, the paper highlights cooling from a number of volcanic eruptions, AND a long & anomalously low period of solar activity, AND higher than expected human sulphate emissions - which all combined to temporarily slow warming beyond the models' most-likely pred

You didn't even read the paper. It's not random forcings, the model takes into account volcanos. No one would write a paper saying, "Models are wrong because we had more volcanos than expected." This paper doesn't say that either, it says the problems are due to "systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations."

"Fully admitting the models are wrong" is curious - no, make that furious - way to spin that study.

Models are made, data is gathered and compared with the model, models get refined. Welcome to science. That doesn't "admit the models are wrong", merely that there are variables - many of them, in this case - that we don't know with accuracy.

Reading the way you phrased this slapped my brain kind of funny. It's almost as some people treat science like another religion instead of science being just science? When it comes to religion, If you point out something contradictory/wrong in a religious text, that's blasphemy and creates a visceral reaction. The religion's truth is at stake. It creates a shouting match and people hate each other, use it to discredit one another, because the whole thing is at risk of toppling. Science on the other han

You linked to the daily caller. You may as well just called up Scott Pruitt.

Since you clearly don't understand how models work (any model), let me clue you in: They are all wrong. Every single one of them. There is no such thing as a perfect model. Never has been, never will be. It doesn't matter if you're talking about a model for a bridge or a model for the climate. Every single model has error bars, caveats, assumptions, etc., which is why models are used for GUIDANCE and not PREDICTION. The predictions are made from models, additional data, additional analysis, etc. from EXPERTS IN THE FIELD. Models are TOOLS, not the end all be all of scientific analysis.

Now that we got that out of the way, the paper does not say anything about the models being completely wrong. The paper is examining several different aspects of potential sources that lead to temperatures increasing at a slightly slower rate than the models predicted over the past decade or so. The issues range from potential systemic biases in the data sets to various different aspects of internal variability that the models don't currently capture.

At no point do they claim that the models "are completely wrong". Nor are any current results invalidated. This is a paper discussing possible improvements to the models and/or data analysis to improve overall predictions.

You either didn't read the paper, or you need to really work on your reading comprehension.

Physicist here. Models are not wrong, but rather incomplete. A good physical model when simulating an experiment will account for >80% of a measurement's real value. That means when done right, errors come from 3rd and 4th order effects that are either not readily simulated or are seemingly random effects. If the climate models are this wrong, then they are incomplete and further study is warranted to increase accuracy of the monte carlo calculations, distributions feeding models, or partial differen

I linked to the actual paper. Learn To Read. The models are wrong: many papers have shown over the past few years. You don't realize it because you attack strawmen instead of reading the actual paper I linked to.

Yes and no. First, modeling a chaotic system is damned hard and is never going to give 100% accurate results. Second, if I am understanding properly, it may mean that it is going to be worse. Probably not, but maybe. Rember the first point, it's damned hard.

I think it reasonable to assume they are good for broad predictions of trends and any very specific estimations are stupid. Yeah, climate is changing. No, we're probably not going to die as a direct result. We can crawl faster than the oceans will rise. We will adapt. It's what we do.

Other than a few islands, we have plenty of space. It will take many years for the oceans to rise.

I already live in the mountains. Humans will move and adapt, it's what we have always done. The climate is changing and we aren't going to stop releasing CO2. You might as well make your plans now, or not worry about it as it is likely to not actually impact you greatly. You'll be dead before much changes.

Nah, probably not on large scales. The various countries have various heights. They're not going to all be moving at once. We're not going to wake up and have 3 months to move our shit to high ground. Climate change doesn't work like that.

Oh, they'll be free to use "my patch" because I'll be long dead before it gets to be a major problem.

Really, you'll be okay. The Huns and the likes didn't have things like public transportation, cars, and broad communication to aid in migration.

To be clear, I believe the climate is changing, and warming. I believe the oceans are going to rise. I don't believe we're going to do much to stop it, largely because we're a pretty stupid species. You might just as well plan on the inevitable instead of trying to i

No, I think that it's largely irrelevant. We're not going to stop it. You might just as well adjust your expectations to suit, unless you can somehow control the world. If you can, then I'd suggest you do something to stop it.

Ah! Heh... No.;-) Every model that you've probably *seen* has predicted more warming than has taken place.

I've downloaded and run a few of the models and made an almost-academic study of it. I was actually just curious, as I'm very familiar with modeling chaotic systems - namely traffic. And, depending on the settings, you'll get different results. The _media_ only publishes certain findings and papers only highlight certain findings.

Sorry, I may have been a bit confused. Yes, it's not likely, but not real

Good point. The most likely case at this point seems to be "not much to worry about."
The reasonable course of action would be to continue improving our technology, like electric cars (which are coming along quite nicely), and stop with the propaganda that global warming is going to kill us. Because it's not.

maybe you should read this "A new paper finds common errors among the 3% of climate papers that reject the global warming consensus"... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/25/heres-what-happens-when-you-try-to-replicate-climate-contrarian-papers

Fuck you blue states and your federal government, we red states don't need it. Well, we want it now, what with the hurricane, and maybe border wall money too - funny how it wasn't worth spending state money on, but fuck you to Sodom once the hurricane season is over, you hypocritical leeches!

1. Holy crap there are many other sites that report exactly the same thing. That's because the numbers come from places like the Congressional Budget Office, which don't play politics with their numbers.

2. It's actually pretty much exactly that simple. Time after time, the Blue States elect more liberal, more progressive governments than the Red States. They also contribute more to the country.

3. A lot of those Red States are even more dependent on federal government support, especially for agricultur

I knew I was into the deep bullshit when Forbes tried to claim states with the worst health care, worst education, worst life expectancy, lowest average wage, worst...well, worst just about everything were somehow better off.

What usually happens when one species is diminished is that another species takes its place.So, we may not get fewer parasites, only fewer species of parasites.

Overall, when the Earth gets warmer, species from places that were warmer are likely to become more common in places that used to be colder, but now are not. That's not just parasites, but all types of insects, plants, animals and diseases.

So either I change my ways and save the mosquitos and evil spouses or a big chunk of the world dies, coastlands reduce, and we all have to disgusting lab grown algae.... how long do I have to think about it?

Mosquitoes do not make up a substantial part of any creatures diet. Even bats do not depend on mosquitoes. Bats eat beetles, wasps, and moths. Mosquitoes make up less than 1 percent of their total diet.
Studies of areas where mosquitoes have been eliminated show no major ecological disruption. They are seasonal anyway. Mosquitoes (at least the ones that harm us) are a blight on the world and should be eliminated.

Here it's not a problem with people being killed by something or someone but more one of people not being born. This is mostly due to people noticing troubling times ahead and refusing to propagate. Something you can observe in a few species that do not have young if it's likely that there will not be enough food for them to survive.

Indeed. Problem is that that re-balancing act might take millions of years and involve getting humans out of the equation.

What many climate change critics and proponents get wrong is that environmentalism is about saving "nature" or the planet, but really it isn't. The planet doesn't care and will be just fine. Ten million years are nothing on a planetary scale and life will adapt to our pollution and destruction and go on even without us.What this is about is conserving the fragile ecosystem that humans ma

Sure. Tapeworms make great pets - they go where you go, eat what you eat, they're quiet, not messy, etc.

They can also help you lose weight. Some types of parasitic worms suppress the immune system, and can be used to treat autoimmune disorders [wikipedia.org], including Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and asthma.

Good joke, of course, but more seriously, we shouldn't be too dismissive of the role played by any major part of the ecosystems, when we don't fully understand the situation. Just as a rather well reported example, there are several indications that the rise in allergies may have a lot to do with the elimination of internal parasites.

Bad? Hell no. It's one of the best things that happened to the Earth in its more recent history. Finally it can return to the state it was in a couple million years ago when it was warmer on this planet, with a higher CO2 concentration that made those wonderful, huge forests possible that could be found all over the place. We might even see those deserts vanish (yes, despite warmer climate, it will probably also be more humid and generally more beneficial for plant growth).